


The Static Age

by ratfromasewer



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Awkward Sexual Situations, Best Friends, Crushes, Family Drama, Friendship/Love, Gen, Ghost Hunting, Haunted Houses, M/M, Misunderstandings, Partying, Planning Adventures, Soulmates, Teenagers, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Unresolved Romantic Tension, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 04:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6314596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratfromasewer/pseuds/ratfromasewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I have found the best way to avoid ending your life as a bitter wreck is to start out as one."<br/>Morrissey</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

There was something off about that evening, something that Frank couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was just an echo of a feeling in his guts, which he had chosen to ignore, rubbing his neck and almost being able to _hear_ how his muscles ached under his sun-burned skin.

The school had started only weeks ago but the summer refused to go, the last remaining weeks of heat determinately lingering on New Jersey’s streets, and making everyone wish they could spent more time outdoors while the good weather still lasted.

Almost everyone, that was.

 

The sun was slowly setting and Frank was sitting on the sidewalk, his skateboard resting against his feet and his last cigarette lit in between his lips. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes to the euphoric sensation of his lungs being filled with smoke, which he blew out of his mouth seconds later and dumped the cigarette on the asphalt.

The last sparks danced on the ground before fading away.

 

It was a warm august evening, the star closest to Frank’s least favorite planet was slowly being pulled below the horizon, and the quiet street bathed in orange and burgundy sunbeams. It was silent, really silent, and something about that made Frank restless. He tried to listen carefully for footsteps, the ones he knew he would recognize, but there were none; he sighed, rubbing cigarette ash in between his fingers thoughtfully.

Motherfucker was late, again.

 

Ever since Frank had approached Gerard in biology class many, many years ago in middle school’s first weeks, most of his evenings had been full of exactly this - waiting for Gerard, losing the track of time and stubbornly denying that he actually liked the other’s company rather than just being used to it, what he usually said if someone asked anything about them.

To this age, Frank hadn’t quite understood the whole fuss about company, or friends, or why there had to be so many of them for a guy to feel complete. Frank felt like a whole person without.

 

Someone closed a garage door somewhere nearby and the slam reminded Frank of a gunshot. The sound mirrored across the street sending chilly pulses up Frank's nerve-system. When he closed his eyes he could see colors. It felt a little early for a fall flu, but for some people, some people like Frank, being ill was more like a default state than a rare occurrence. 

 

Frank waited for another good ten minutes until Gerard finally bothered to show up. The chubby boy was half-walking, half-jogging down the street, panting quite heavily due to walking so fast, and there were a few drops of sweat on his forehead.

 

 Frank looked at the clothes the other had on - a black sweater and black jeans - and compared the outfit to his own. Frank wasn’t really the fashion-kind of guy, he mostly just wore whatever was convenient and covered him up enough to be considered decent, but Gerard was on a whole another level with his terrible clothing choices.

 

 “Aren’t you dying in those?” Frank asked, referring to the outfit that looked like a home-made Darth Vader costume, and was most likely putting the older boy in a risk of a severe heat stroke.

 

“I forgot how hot it still is” Gerard replied, visibly annoyed, “fuck summer.” 

 

 “’s because you never fucking go outside.” Frank grinned.

 

Frank was aware, and had been ever since social norms had become something that mattered, that the two of them were quite a sight sometimes because of their visual differences - Gerard being the most generic loser hiding in his parents’ basement and mostly walking around in clothes that could’ve belonged to a future serial killer, and Frank himself, usually dressed in shorts and t-shirts, tanned arms and weather-beaten hands tugged in his pockets, and his messy gingery (dyed, because he was _that_  cool) hair put up in spikes with styling gel. But it didn’t really matter to them because as much as their outlooks might've differed from each other, they shared sarcasm, a whole bunch of horrible memories and  a burning passion in bands like misfits. 

Passion, which was bordering on an obsession at times and really concerned Frank's grandmother.

 

“Fuck you” Gerard looked around almost nervously and Frank hadn’t still gotten around to ask why Gerard was always checking his surroundings like he was worried about something, “So, what’s the plan?”

 

“There’s no plan” Frank shrugged, “What’ya wanna do?” He was kind of hoping for something -  it was stupid, he thought - an  _adventure._ Because unlike other dungeons and dragons jerk-offs who lacked the slightest hint of any normal human skills, Gerard actually had an incredible imagination outside the fictional universe as well. And somehow Frank couldn’t imagine a day where he wasn’t putting Gerard’s adventures into action. Frank liked to think of himself as the executor for the other's vision.

 

 “Oh you’re gonna  _love_  this” Gerard’s face lit. Frank guessed that the older boy had expected this, but being too withdrawn he usually didn't tell without being asked.

Frank stood up and leaned against his skateboard, smiling devilishly.

 

“Lemme hear it.”

Gerard smiled; “Let’s break into the Miller house.”

 

 _The Miller house_ was a local, abandoned building which had earned its reputation as a teenager scare-off, everyone’s favorite haunted house of the neighborhood. No one really knew what had happened here, or rather, everyone seemed to know far too well, but the story was always different depending on who was telling it. 

The only thing that was agreed on was that you did  _not_ go into the Miller house, especially if you were there without a permission.

 

This unspoken rule, quite obviously, had made the house a very popular place for teenagers to sneak in when they wanted to feel rebellious or otherwise act stupid, but Frank had personally never been in there. If he was being honest, the house really gave him the creeps; its wild garden looked like it was growing on rotting corpses, and it was really easy to imagine what kind of unimaginable horrors there could possibly be hiding behind those dirty windows and creaky staircases and flaking paint. If some place in Jersey was haunted, it was that house, and Frank wasn’t exactly a sceptical person.

 

  “The Miller house?” Frank repeated.

 

  “The Miller house.” Gerard seemed awfully proud of himself for coming up with something so stupid, “You in, or what?”

 

“This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had.” Frank exclaimed and Gerard’s face darkened in a matter of seconds, but Frank offered him a high five: “ _Of course_ I’m in.”

 

 ***

 

Frank was going to abandon his skateboard outside and leave it resting against the fence, but after Gerard insisted that he’d take it with him and use it as a weapon if someone, or some _thing_ was to attack them, Frank picked up the board and carried it under his arm even though he was fairly sure that a ghost would not be too bothered by being hit with a skateboard, no matter how heavy.

 

It was starting to get a little bit darker by a second as Gerard examined the lock of the fence while Frank stared at the garden and the house almost doubtfully. This felt like a bad idea, but Frank had grown up to love bad ideas. That's what growing up attached by the hip with Gerard Way had been like.

 

“Hurry up, Houdini” Frank scoffed when Gerard cursed, poking at the lock with a hairpin - which he had stolen from his mom, he had explained rather proudly - “I don’t have all night.”

 

“Don’t you?” Gerard hissed, turning the lock in his hand for another angle. A stray cat meowed somewhere nearby but remained unseen, otherwise it was still very quiet. There was not a house located exactly directly next to the Miller house, neither side, everyone lived a proper distance away from the house’s radius like it carried a contagious disease.

 

Frank was still a little bit nervous about being caught before they even got inside because he bet that the neighbors were already used of curious fuckers like them sneaking in. But the street stayed silent as ever, sleepy, almost like everyone had already gotten to bed even though it was barely 9PM.

 

“Whatever”, Frank got sick of waiting when after, many unsuccessful attempts later, Gerard still hadn’t opened the lock, “I’m climbing.”

 “Wait.” Gerard frowned and glanced at the other, “Maybe you, but what about _me_?”

  “Come on, pansy” Frank rolled his eyes, “It’s not that high. Even you can do that. Now come here and I’ll give you a push.”

 

Frank was right – the fence wasn’t exactly high, especially for Gerard who was clearly the taller one of the two. The fence was about the height of his shoulders, made of bricks and cement slammed together carelessly like whoever had built it had only wanted the job to be done quickly, no matter the result.

 

The only problem with the fence was that Gerard was possibly the very definition of unathletic and he was very self-conscious about anything that even remotely resembled exercise, but Frank’s impatient look made him shrug off his uncomfortable feeling and put his arms on the fence, biting his lip and trying to pull up his own weight as Frank proceeded to give him a push, grabbing his knees and practically lifting the older boy.

 

Rather ungracefully Gerard balanced himself on the fence, sitting and staring down at the bushes below, trying to decide whether or not it was safe to jump.

 

“Poison Ivy” Gerard said with a dull tone, “We’re gonna fucking die.”

 

“Nah, we’re not” Frank threw his beloved skateboard over the fence carelessly, startling Gerard a bit and making a flock of birds take wing from the nearby trees.

After Frank had thrown the board, he then took a few step backs to make some room between him and the fence that almost his height, only to sprint and grab the fence in the speed, jumping on it lightly and casually like it was not a big deal at all.

 

“Show-off.” Gerard laughed.

“Nerd.” Frank shoved Gerard almost causing the other to fall, “The last one on the porch likes country music.” Frank dropped down before Gerard had even time to blink – the skater landed skillfully on his feet and only swayed a little before grabbing his skateboard and running towards the house almost as if he couldn’t even feel the overgrown weeds sticking onto his clothes.

 

Gerard mumbled, “Oh _fuck you_ ” Under his breath before following the other, jumping off the fence much less delicately than Frank had, almost landing on his face, and then proceeding to jog towards the house where Frank was already standing by the front door, inspecting it like there were going to be signs of some kind of paranormal activity even on the outside of the house, which now when they were really up close and personal with, didn’t feel that creepy at all. There were abandoned, dumped cigarettes and empty beer cans laying all over, messy graffiti spray-painted on the plank-sealed windows. Frank even spotted a used condom hanging from the wall, nailed on it like some kind of a trophy.

 

He pointed at it and waved Gerard to look, “Some douche pops boners by being scared shitless.”

 

“Are you scared shitless?” Gerard tried to peek inside the window but saw nothing, his clothes damping with sweat even though the heat was now slowly losing its grip as the sun went down, “’cause I’m kinda unimpressed.”

 

“We haven’t been inside yet” Frank reminded the other boy, even though he had to agree on the place being far less scary now that he was actually witnessing it rather than just dreading from afar, “No one’s ever said they’ve seen anything weird on the porch. So come on.”

 

“Wait” Gerard stopped the other while he was aiming a kick to the front door, clearly planning on breaking it instead of even trying to open it, “What if there’s actually like… ghosts in there?”

 

“Don’t worry”, Frank consoled sarcastically and repositioned himself, putting the skateboard down for a moment so that he could use his whole body’s strength for the kick, “I’m sure they’ll just be frightened of your smell.”

 

“Oh fuck you” Gerard repeated once again, crossing his arms around his torso almost protectively and looking closely as Frank concentrated to breaking the door down. Which he in fact, did – the door had clearly been pulled off of its hinges before and it didn’t take much for it to yank open, revealing a way to inside the haunted house, which in this light pretty much looked like a regular house, just a little dustier.

 

“Ladies first”, Frank gave a mocking nod at the hallway even though he couldn’t quite hide the hesitant expression that had suddenly risen on his face. Gerard sensed that Frank was much more serious than what he insisted to be, which would’ve been a lot funnier if Gerard had been any more confident.

  Which he wasn’t, so he simply argued;

“Why don’t you go first? You were in a hurry before.”

 

“Fine” Frank rolled his eyes, “At the same time?” He picked up his skateboard and silently thanked himself for taking it with him, allowing him even some kind of an illusion of being able to defend himself if needed.

 

“Fair enough,” Gerard looked around him and noticed a stone, suitable to been put in between the door and the frame so that the door wouldn’t lock behind them, even if it was unlikely. He picked up the rock and placed it carefully, even testing if it would stop the door if a sudden breeze would try and slam the door shut.

  It stayed open.

 

“Great” Frank hugged his skateboard and looked at Gerard from behind it, “We’re going in?”

 

“Yeah” Gerard nodded hastily, pretending that he wasn’t even having even the smallest of second thoughts about this “We can’t just stand here all night.”

 

“Watch out, poltergeist” Frank muttered, “Here comes the loser division.” He grabbed Gerard’s wrist with his free hand and walked in, pulling the older boy behind him like he was protecting his backside with a human shield. Gerard noticed this but was secretly happy about not having to lead, so he followed without a complaint.

 

The Miller house was pretty much exactly how Gerard had imagined it to be; according to his knowledge, the house had been empty for about a ten or fifteen years now, which made it some kind of a window to the past; everything looked exactly like it did from old photographs Gerard sometimes had to look at with his grandparents. Everything was covered in thick, unbreathable dust which dried both of their lungs and made them cough; the air was stale and made it hard to swallow, the floorboards creaked under their steps no matter how cautious they were.

 

“Woah hey, look” Frank gulped harshly and Gerard pressed his hands into sweaty fists, “Look at that tag.”

 

“Which one?”

 

Even though there was not as much trash inside the house as there had been on the porch, there were still a lot of signs about uninvited and unwanted visitors; Frank noticed something that looked like a guitar pick on the living room coffee table, and there were a bunch of stuff written all over the walls like everyone had wanted to prove physically that they had been brave enough to come in and stay here for a while.

 

“That one” Frank pointed at a clean, nicely done green letter _T_ on the left side wall of the living room, “Looks familiar?”

 

“Yeah, that’s Ray’s, isn’t it?” Gerard tilted his head thoughtfully, scrunching his face and rubbing one eye like he always did when he was thinking, “I actually think he might’ve mentioned about it… some time…”

“Not surprised”, Frank shrugged, giving a final glance at the tag before it lost off all of its appeal, “I’m pretty sure he’ll paint on every wall on Jersey by the age of twenty-one.”

 

“You’re underestimating him.” Gerard grinned.

 

Ray Toro was one of those people that everyone kind of loved for no apparent reason other than he had never done injustice to anyone, gaining nothing but friends and not a single enemy in the process that was High School. He was one of those people who managed to fly under the radar even though logically thinking there was a lot of things about him to pick on; take for example his Puerto Rican roots which had blessed him with a significant appearance, a pair of very dark eyes, full lips and an out-of-control curly hair that he usually tied into a ponytail or kept out of his face with a bandana. Although he was artistic, he had never been drawn to staying indoors so he was tanned and fit, and he probably could’ve slam dunked a guy like Frank in a basket just for fun if he wanted to.

 

It was not a secret that at his teens Ray had become more interested in politics, which had quickly resulted in social awareness and general pissed-offness. Around the same time he had found street art which had eventually opened another world for Ray – a world, where all of public property had now become his canvas. And what better way to be an activist then painting, Gerard had always agreed on that, from time to time attempting to befriend the Puerto Rico born punk he looked up to. Gerard had never been successful, though; not that Ray had purposely ignored him or anything, but Gerard was generally awkward and befriending people wasn’t exactly what he was good at.

 

“Ghostie ghostie.” Frank kicked one of the empty beer cans, causing a cloud of dust rise on the air and making them both cough. “Where are you, ghostie?”

 

“Don’t” Gerard hissed and tried to punch Frank’s arm but missed when the other dodged, “In case there’s… I mean, don’t piss it off.”

 

“There’s nothing in here, Gerard.” Frank said stubbornly, but he was not as sure about it as he wanted the other to believe. In fact, he actually thought that he could hear a weird noise coming from inside the walls, like insects crawling, and it gave him goose bumps. He had also noticed, how oddly cold it was inside the house, considering the heat wave that had tortured the state for several weeks now; it was a bit unnatural, and Frank had to admit it to himself. But there was no way in hell he was going to admit any of this to Gerard.

 

“Fine.” Gerard rolled his eyes a bit too dramatically for it to seem genuine, “Whatever. I’m going upstairs.”

 

“Great. I’m coming with you” Frank held the skateboard closer to his chest like a child and followed the other boy hastily up the creaky stairs, not quite managing to hide how afraid of being left behind he really was. Sure, he could act brave for all he wanted, but alone he was going to die that much was certain. What if there really was some kind of paranormal activity going on in here, Frank reasoned. All urban legends had their origins. And something weird there was about this place. Something was _off._

 

“Oh shit” Gerard breathed when he reached the top of the stairs, and Frank blinked and gulped worriedly.

 

“What?” Frank’s voice was small and thin.

 

“Is that… is that _blood_?”

 

Gerard sounded more fascinated than creeped out, which really creeped Frank out even more. He hadn’t signed up for actually facing some gross crime scene of mental breakdown or anything. Who knew what had happened here – Frank tried to dig up all the versions of the story from his memory, only getting them mixed up with all the horror movies he had watched in his life. Frank remembered something about murder, something about domestic violence, something sad and tragic and blah-blah.

 

He started to think that he probably should’ve listened to the stories more carefully. Instead of a bad, this began to feel like a terrible idea.

 

“ _Blood_?”

 

“I dunno” Gerard waved Frank to come closer so that they were standing on the same step, staring at a damp, dark stain on the wall facing the stairs. Next to it was a door that clearly led to a bedroom. “I mean, it could be. But it could be like, strawberry jam too for all we know.”

 

“Yes, Gerard” Frank found his voice unnecessary hysteric, “because there’s nothing like good strawberry jam spirit to haunt a whole house.”

 

“I thought you didn’t believe this place was haunted” Gerard glanced at Frank rather baffled. Gerard’s hands were shaking in the pockets of his hoodie, but he felt relatively calm now that he was clearly the one with more sense. He was secretly happy about proving his plan had been good; another afternoon changed into a less-boring one.

 

“Fine, maybe I believe just a little” Frank admitted, frowning. His forehead was full of big, thoughtful wrinkles and he was biting his tongue. For some reason, not having anything securing his backside made him really concerned about his safety.

 

Just as Gerard was about to say something sarcastic about Frank changing his mind quickly the door, which Gerard had made sure to stay open before they entered the house, slammed in forcefully like in the middle of a family fight.

 

Frank bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood, his face running bloodless and sweat appearing on his forehead. He didn’t want to turn around but he did, gripping Gerard’s wrist as he was holding his chest and mouth hanging wide open.

 

“ _What the –“_ Gerard whispered.

 

“Police!” Came an authoritative voice from downstairs, “This house is private property! I know you’re in there, the neighbors called. Playtime is over, boys.”

 

“Shit” Frank cursed, “Fucking… _shit._ ” Without a second thought he pulled Gerard by the hand further upstairs, not daring to look back. Frank knew that the best idea was now to avoid being seen, which was not going to be an easy task. Ignoring the fact that the cops could hear the boys’ steps through the thin floor, he ran down the upstairs hallway going through his options in a speed of sound in his head.

Gerard was no use; he let Frank drag him, but he still seemed to be in a shock. Gerard didn’t have as much experience running from cops, Frank guessed.

 

“Fire ladder” Frank breathed as he heard the cop’s approaching pace coming up the stairs, “Fire ladder.”

 

In the end of the hallway was a window, so dirty that you could barely see through it, but Frank vaguely remembered seeing fire ladder resting against the east wall of the house one time he had walked past it. Frank estimated that maybe, just maybe the ladder was close enough to the window for it to make a proper way for escape.

 

Without hesitation, he smashed his skateboard against the window and Gerard instinctively covered his face from the flying fragments of glass. He was still a bit taken by the surprise, but he had come into his senses enough to understand Frank’s plan. As much as he hated the thought of climbing down the ladder and possibly cracking all of the bones in his body in the process, he hated the thought of being caught and having to explain it to his mom more, so he silently agreed to stick to Frank’s idea.

 

When the glass was completely broken, Frank immediately threw the skateboard out of the hole he had made, realizing that he would need both of his hands for climbing. 

“Go!” He ordered in harsh voice and pushed Gerard towards the window, looking over his shoulder at the stairs. He didn’t want to fight, and he also despised the idea of getting caught even more than Gerard did.

 

Luckily, Gerard moved faster than he probably had in all his life; he grabbed the window frame ignoring the cuts he got on his hands, sliding his lower body out of the window almost agilely and balancing his feet on the ladder not long after, sighing from relief when it seemed that it could probably handle his weight. He just had to hope, and he started climbing down as quickly as he could, looking up to make sure that Frank was following.

He was; as soon as all of Gerard had disappeared out of the window Frank had nearly dived out of it himself, dangerously swinging himself on the ladder and getting a fast glance at the cop who had reached the top of the stairs.

 

Frank really hoped that the man would take a moment to fathom where the kids had gone, and just as Frank has suspected, the cop’s face appeared on the window just when Gerard had reached the final ladder and dropped down the 4-feet distance to the ground. Gerard was wheezing and panting, his heart was racing and his brain was screaming red alert but otherwise he felt pretty amazing, and he couldn’t help but grin devilishly as Frank jumped down next to him and picked his skateboard from the ground.

 

Frank gave Gerard an appreciative look, his eyes full of wild sparkles; “run.”

 

And they did.


	2. Chapter 2

It was one of those lazy Wednesdays.

The hot asphalt melted everyone’s shoe soles, heavying already reluctant steps and causing the sweat-stinking hallways resemble scenes from b-class horror films. The living dead crawled their way to their classes, mechanically controlled by the occasional rings of a bell.

 

Frank sincerely thanked god for public school, mostly for not having to wear a tie like the poor bastards from the catholic school nearby. The heat wave still wasn’t showing any signs of easing and even the most devoted sunbathers, such as Frank’s mom, were wishing for a moment of shade or maybe a soothing rain on the burning ground. Frank couldn’t remember the last time Jersey had been this hot for such a torturing amount of time, and he wasn’t having it. It was too hot to skate, he was constantly thirsty and his head ached from staying in the sunshine. He felt like his eyes were boiling inside his skull, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

In the morning he had noticed that all of the flowers growing in the front of their porch had dried to their deaths.

 

Frank wasted his time slouching in his seat like a wet cloth, but the time didn’t pass any faster no matter how hard he tried to escape by re-living his last week’s memories of their Miller house adventure which were already polishing themselves with nostalgia.

The scars on both of their palms had barely faded.

Frank had laughed harder than he remembered laughing in months. Gerard’s face had been priceless after they had rushed down several blocks only to realize that they in fact had survived without being caught.

Dr. Pepper tasted better than ever before when it was washing down what Gerard called _a close call._ Frank had no complaints.

 

The lucky classes Frank shared with his best friend, he mostly spent throwing meaningful eye-rolls in Gerard’s general direction whenever the teacher said something neither of them could agree on, which was _often._ But laughing about teachers wasn’t somehow as funny as usually, which made Frank worried – although he was pretty sure that neither of them was ever going to properly grow up.

He knew all too well that maturing wasn’t scheduled for neither of them, not in the immediate future at least.

 

After school, which stood for six to seven hours doing absolutely nothing productive, Frank followed Gerard home and together they continued to procrastinate to their best ability, which now meant video games.

Gerard’s parents, Donna and Donald were both out working at the time the boys got home, and Gerard’s little brother mostly preferred his own company, isolating himself in his room which was located on the house’s dusty attic.

 

Due to the fact that Gerard inhabited the basement which was literally two floors from where Mikey was hiding, it was not necessary for them to see each other any more than they did at dinner time. They weren’t exactly at sixes and sevens, they just hanged around with different people and lived separate lives.

Gerard didn’t hate his little brother or anything, he was simply too _thirteen_ for Gerard’s 16-year-old company.

 

Not that Gerard was unexperienced in hanging out with kids younger than him. Despite being 16, he was not Junior like most of other sixteen-year-olds, but had just started his Sophomore year just like Frank who was, logically, a year younger than the older Way brother.

It was rarely brought up in a conversation and most of Gerard’s classmates were under the impression that Gerard was a year late because of some kind of a mental retardation – Gerard was hardly bothered by the rumor and never corrected it – but the much less exciting explanation to the situation was that as a child, Gerard had come down with severe pneumonia which with its complications had put him in bed for almost an entire year, causing him to fall behind in his studies and making it obligatory to double his 6th grade. It had been a literal nightmare at the time, destroying Gerard’s already fragile human contacts from his class, and the few friendships he had managed to form in the first years of middle school were history.

 Besides, who the hell wants to be thrown in a class of complete strangers at the age of eleven?

Luckily, that was exactly when Frank had approached the weird, pale boy in a biology class and accidentally started a friendship for at least a few upcoming lifetimes.

 

Gerard wasn’t bitter, really. He had spent the entire year of sickness reading comics and eating humongous amounts of ice cream under his space-themed blue blanket fort. He could’ve gladly done the same any time now if his mom would’ve let him. And without his quarantine, he probably had never met Frank so it was all good as far as Gerard cared.

 

Because of his year of solitude Gerard had also grown to love his privacy even more than his introverted character had resulted in, and to this day he couldn’t stand continuous social interaction in any form.

 Frank was one of those rare people Gerard could spend a time longer than a few hours with without having a nervous breakdown.

 

It was getting closer to 5PM, Gerard’s mom parked her car on the driveway and waved a quick hello to the boys before hurrying into the kitchen. The heels of her shoes clattered against the floorboards, her bleached hair spread out a strong sent of lilies and extra strong hairspray. Her red lipstick didn’t flake when she smiled, but it did leave a visible mark on his husband’s cheek when he arrived not long after his wife.

Donald gave the boys a nod as a sign of taking them into account. Frank could’ve sworn that mr. Way’s hairline receded a couple of inches every time Frank saw him.

 

“Where’s your brother, Gerard?” mr. Way inquired.

Donald’s voice reminded Frank of Gerard’s in an almost disturbing amount. Gerard looked like his father, too; their pointy noses and lively eyes made the fact that they were related very obvious.

On the other hand, who was Frank to talk, really? Every get-together with relatives was literally just hours of listening how much of an almost freakishly accurate look-alike of his father Frank Iero Junior was.

Frank hated meeting his relatives.

 

“Upstairs.” Gerard’s eyes didn’t move from the screen, “What has he done this time?”

“He’s done nothing.” Donald scoffed, “When did you become such a sceptic?”

“At birth.” Gerard mumbled in response.

“I should’ve known” Donald joked, “you came out of your mother’s uterus making smartass comments.”

 

Gerard didn’t reply, and his dad sighed, observing the game for a thoughtful minute before heading upstairs like his older son had advised him to do.

 

Frank didn’t want to go home. Therefore he simply put his feet up on the coffee table and abused the game controller, smashing Gerard’s character’s face against the pixelated concrete floor on the TV again and again, earning a dirty look from his best friend as Frank’s character burst into a demonic laughter and the blood-splattered words _game over_ appeared on the screen.

 

“Fuck yeah.” Frank grinned and patted himself on the shoulder, “Victory is inevitable.”

His backpack was resting against the couch. Even the look of it made his back hurt.

 

“Victory my _ass_.”

 

“Language, young man” Gerard’s mom yelled from the kitchen as an immediate response. She had tied a pink apron around her round hips and she was cooking, her heels making music against the floor like steps of a dance.

Gerard had been certain that she was eavesdropping, and she had proved him right. Curiosity was a dominant personal trait which he shared with his mom, but the fact that they were alike didn’t really make him more understanding about the other’s habit of sticking her nose in everything Gerard ever did.

 

“Frank said fuck” Gerard argued even though Frank tried to hush him down, “aren’t you gonna tell _him_ off?”

 

“I don’t care what Frank said.” Donna’s voice was poisonous enough to make the whole living room harder to breathe in, “Unlike you, Frank is not my son. I’m not judged for his behavior. But for yours I am.”

 

“Wow. Sorry to disappoint.” Gerard pressed the restart button on his controller and turned to Frank, a slight smirk gleaming on his lips: “Thirty out of fifty?”

 

“Nuh-uh” Donna had appeared on the door and cut Frank off before the younger boy had the time to answer. She was drying her delicate hands in the apron, and frowning:

 “You two are going out. You’ve done nothing all day. It’s time for some fresh air before dinner.”

 

“We were in school!” Gerard whined. His ears were burning in embarrassment as always when his mom ordered him around in front of his friends. Another part of her not-so-easy-to-deal-with personality that Gerard had mostly definitely inherited was stubbornness, and Gerard was more than aware that if she made a decision, she was not going to change her mind no matter what. The archangel Gabriel could’ve landed from the sky and taken Gerard’s side, and it probably wouldn't have even made Donna blink if she was in this mood.

That wasn’t going to stop Gerard from trying, though.

 

“School?” Gerard’s mom scoffed sarcastically, “looking at your grades it’s a surprise that you even _go_ to school.”

“They’re not that bad.” Gerard talked back, “Frank’s are worse.”

“Hey!” Frank’s eyes widened and a light shade of red rose on his cheeks, “Fuck you.” He glanced at Donna and quickly stuttered; “Sorry, mrs. Way.”

 

Despite knowing the Way family for a long time, Frank was still terrified of Gerard’s mother and he really had every reason to be. He couldn’t believe that Gerard had the courage to make complaints when Frank mostly wanted to run in the opposite direction as hard as he could whenever Donna gave him the parental bad eye.

 

“Once again, I don’t give a single shit about Frank.” Donna Way laughed, but her laughter had nothing to do with finding anything funny and Gerard already knew that he was defeated:

“Have fun out, you two.”

Frank grabbed his backpack hastily and jumped towards the door, hoping for the situation to pass. He had witnessed enough family fights for a one lifetime.

 

For Frank’s relief, Gerard accepted his bitter fate and he settled with flipping off his mother’s turned back as he followed his best friend out of the living room after turning off the console.

 

The game characters flickered half a second before fading into messy static and disappearing, leaving the screen black and lifeless.

 

***

 

“God, I wish I had a smoke.” Frank tossed his backpack on the ground and gestured Gerard to stay put as he wrapped his arms around the pole which was supporting the shed that overshadowed the Iero household porch.

Easily he pulled his body up and swayed his feet on the shed, pulling himself up and smiling at Gerard who was doing his best to look unimpressed. Gerard couldn’t help it, though; no matter how many times he witnessed his best friend act like a god damn monkey he was still taken back by the other’s expertise.

 

Frank had been forced to learn; his mother spent most of her waken time working either one of her jobs and was barely ever home, which had put Frank under a lot of responsibility since a very early age. Unfortunately Frank’s memory was comparable to a sieve, and important things such as remembering his keys were never at the top of his list of priorities.

This had resulted in a lot of reckless climbing and breaking in. Frank was pretty certain that if his promising career as a professional skater was destined to fail, he could always make his living as a consulting burglar.

Or possibly a circus freak.

 

As Gerard concernedly followed from below his neck already aching, Frank stood up on the shed and balanced himself so he could take the few steps to a spot directly under his bedroom window. After that, the hard part began; he grabbed the launder under his window and pulled himself up, groaning from the stretch.

The first attempt was not successful; Frank dropped back down on the shed, rubbing his hands and frowning.

 

“Y’know” Gerard raised his voice so that Frank could hear, “that launder could handle your weight when you were ten, but like…” Gerard broke off and shrugged, “Actually, never mind. You haven’t really grown since.”

 

“Shut up, fatass.” Frank scoffed and grabbed the launder again, this time pulling himself up all the way to the window’s level and pushing it open with his head. Frank always left his window open for this exact reason.

Pushing himself to his limit, he grabbed the window pane with his right and then left hand, landing his feet against the wall to balance himself. Slowly but surely he climbed up until he had disappeared inside, and Gerard remembered how to breathe again.

 

“Apeshit.” Gerard yelled at Frank’s face in the window. Frank only waved back before disappearing somewhere inside the house. Gerard turned around and tucked his hands in his pockets, glaring at the sky.

Few brave clouds had slowly inched in front of the sun, waiting to be pierced by the light. God, Gerard missed the fall.

 

Frank returned, from the front door this time only minutes later. He had left his backpack and was now carrying his beloved skateboard with him. He tossed Gerard a mars bar and cracked a smile.

 

“You wanna go to the ramps?”

“Ugh”, Gerard moaned, “ _Fine._ As long as there’s no one else there.”

 

Gerard actually liked occasionally watching Frank do what he did best, but he could also recall a numerous amount of humiliating occasions when some douche had decided to ruin Gerard’s day by making shitty remarks about how he was not supposed to be there at all.

Gerard was painfully aware about not-belonging. He didn’t need to be reminded.

 

Not that Frank was really popular, either – he wasn’t good enough to impress the other guys so naturally he was forced to take a lot of shit about his height and general outlook of a literal 8-year-old.

The problem was that Frank, contrary to Gerard, was actually good at dealing with mockery and he didn’t let it bother him at all, when Gerard spent most of his time being bitter over things that everyone else had already forgotten about.

 

The skate ramps were located not too far from Frank’s house and the time he didn’t spend getting in trouble with his best friend, he usually spent getting in trouble at the ramps by himself.

The cheap material of the ramps was exposed to all kinds of vandalism and they were mostly covered in graffiti and messages carved into it.

Frank had always thought that if he was ever to date anyone, he would carve her name onto the ramp. So far no one worth carving hadn’t come across.

 

Gerard couldn't help but wonder how many of the tags were made by Ray and his squad of other local young street artists. he often thought about doing graffiti himself, but he had never had the opportunity. Besides, Frank wouldn't probably appreciate Gerard's artistic look on the subject, and they'd most likely end up painting dicks. It was not like Gerard had any other friends to do things with.

 

Frank had been right – there was not a single soul to be seen anywhere nearby, and Gerard was visibly relieved. Chewing on his candy bar he climbed onto the biggest ramp, crossing his legs while he was the top and leaning his cheek against his hand.

 

“You know I would’ve beaten your ass” Gerard felt the need to say in a reference to the video game, “I was clearly winning.”

 

“ _Bullshit_.” Frank put his board down and proceeded to roll back and forth to warm himself up, “You’re a pathological liar.”

He smirked at Gerard, and the older boy threw his candy wrapper towards the other’s face only to miss terribly.

“At least I’m not a cheater.”

 

“And _how_ am I a _cheater_?” Frank tried ollie but his feet were still asleep and he almost fell on his face. Just a tiny bit embarrassed he collected himself and continued to skate back and forth, faster this time like he was determined to hurt himself.

At least that’s how Gerard viewed it.

 

“Dad distracted me.” Gerard complained, “And you took advantage of it.”

“And how, exactly…” Frank kickflipped quite smoothly and smiled mid-flip for the successful trick, “It’s my fault that your dad interrupted us?”

 

“You missed my point.” Gerard put his thumbs up for the kickflip.

“Clearly.” Frank’s voice was sarcastic.

 

“My point was –“

“Fucking _goosetits_!” Frank went for another kickflip but messed up the landing and ended up on all fours. His board rolled away and Gerard could swear that the inanimate object managed to somehow pull an innocent expression like it wanted to say  _hey, it's not my fault._

 

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Frank grabbed the board angrily and jumped on it again. He cursed himself for being so lazy during the summer holiday. It wasn’t entirely his own fault, though; like every summer after his parents’ separation six years ago, he had spent two weeks at his dad’s place in Connecticut, in his dreary bachelor pad watching reruns of Saturday Night Live and stuffing his face with sour cream and onion-flavored chips.

And just like every other summer, the said two weeks had been the most boring weeks of the summer for Gerard as well.

 

“You’re bleeding.” Gerard noted, and he was right; Frank had landed on his already scarred palms and had earned a few scratches in the process. He hadn’t even noticed them himself, and he only wiped the few drops of blood onto his jeans.

 

“’s nothing but a flesh wound.”

 

“By the way” Gerard rolled his shoulders and picking microscopic crumbs of chocolate from his clothes, “Did you hear about the Social Suicide Show?”

 

“The _what_ , now?” Frank threw a confused look at Gerard and bit his tongue, trying to find the perfect balance on his board. Frank knew that it was all about finding balance and practicing until you started to view your board as another limb of your body. Frank wasn't even halfway there yet, but he was trying. Skating was one of the few things he was actually above average, or at least could've been if he practiced more, and it really thrived him to try harder. At least he had something.

 

“School’s throwing a talent show.” Gerard explained rolling his eyes whole-heartedly, “Where poor mislead souls can perform a social suicide. Jack came up with the nickname. I’m just taking credit of his joke.”

 

“Talent show?” Frank groaned, “It’s voluntary, right?”

 

“Well, participation in the audience isn’t.” Gerard whined, “I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than listen to another badly sang _fame._ ”

Frank began humming the melody. He agreed with Gerard – it was an unwritten rule that performing in a school talent show was unquestionably a coup de grace for an already dead reputation.

 

“What if you volunteered?” Frank teased, “You could like, irish dance to Motörhead or something.”

 

“Suck my dick.”

 

“Fatass.” Frank landed on his ass after another failed kickflip attempt and applauded at his own misfortune sarcastically. Gerard joined him, laughing.

 

“Fucknugget.”

 

Gerard brushed his hair off his face and grinned at Frank, pimples forming in the corners of his squishy cheeks and for a moment Frank was pretty sure that Gerard's smile was even brighter than the sun, which wasn't hiding behind clouds anymore and painted the streets in its bright late summer light.

 

 

They stayed on the ramps for hours that day,  Gerard resting on his back and Frank training, until his feet were blistered and drained of all energy. When later on he walked home and microwaved himself a dinner, he felt like all of the bones in his legs were melting. The loud beep informing about his chipotles being heated almost startled him, and he fell asleep on his couch that night, more tired than usual for some reason.

 

When Frank's mom came home in the dusk of night, she wasn't too happy about the muddy footprints on the carpet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in a one day? Look who's feeling productive all of a sudden

Friday night, Gerard didn’t sleep that well.

To be fair, he rarely slept well in general, but this specific Friday was bad even on his own personal scale. Yes, maybe his sleep schedule resembled more a nocturnal animal’s rather than a fully functioning human being’s, but usually he was able to get even a few precious hours of death rehearsal.

 

He rolled around restlessly in the hazy mid-space between sleep and consciousness for hours, sheets sticking onto his skin.

By 3AM, the said sheets were already soaked in his sweat, and hot too, like they were stealing the last of his remaining body warmth. Gerard tried to pull his mind together but it was mostly just a train wreck of cringe-worthy memories and past mistakes. Like mentioned before, Gerard wasn’t exactly the best at letting things go, especially letting go of his own fuck ups. No – he remembered his regrets even more vividly than the wrongs done to him, and usually the best time to go through those memories was in the middle of the god damn night.

He didn’t want it to happen, really. And he had tried his best to make it stop, but his mind simply wouldn’t let him. So he just laid there, eyes glued onto the ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and feeling sorry for himself.

 

By 3AM, Gerard had had enough. He wormed on the edge of the bed and slowly lowered his feet on the cold floor. His throat was sore and he wished the rusty taste of exhaustion away.

Another trick his brain was playing on him, he supposed.

 

For few minutes Gerard sat staring into the dark, trying to recall the source of the terrible reek that bothered his nose.

After a few minutes he suddenly realized that it was in fact, himself that smelled rotten. Maybe the time had come to take that shower which his mom had whined about, making nasty remarks about Gerard’s unkempt appearance and heavily implying that Gerard was too lazy for her liking.

As if Gerard wouldn’t have known that already.

 

Maybe at some point it had become some kind of a trophy to Gerard, to act out that family disappointment role that fit him so well. He had understood in a really early age that it didn’t really matter, what you actually wanted to do. It was way more important to behave like others expected you to because if you did just that, they would let you pass. If you played your part convincingly, no one came in your way.

If you managed not to make too much noise of yourself, that was.

 

That’s exactly how Gerard viewed life. Some kind of a weird trespassing he hadn’t exactly prepared for but that he kind of liked anyway. Sometimes.

 

He pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it on his chair in a pile of other dirty clothes. Wearing only his boxers he grabbed a towel hanging from the doorknob, opened the door of his basement room and tip-toed up the stairs.

It was not like being quiet was that crucial – his parents were already used of his ridiculous waken hours, and even though they weren’t exactly happy about having to live with the fact that Gerard was more a vampire than a human, they had realized that there was really that much that they could do about it, so they let it slide.

 

Although, Gerard vividly remembered the time that they _had_ tried to do something about it. All kinds of doctors had nonchalantly shoved all kinds of prescriptions in his twelve-year-old hands and rushed him out of the door.

And Jesus, had he tried so many pills that he’d lost count. Blue pills, red pills, white pills, pills designed for kids, experimental pills, pills with a list of risky side-effects.

But nothing had helped and mr. and mrs. Way were blatantly introduced to the fact that there was really nothing wrong with Gerard; this was simply how he was.

 

The house was quiet and Gerard could almost hear the clocks ticking upstairs. His every step felt like a gunshot in the silence, the streetlights reflected on the windows casting shadows on the walls and creating an illusion of not being alone, even though Gerard knew for a fact that he was. He gulped and sank into the darkness, not bothering to turn on the lights in the hallway since he knew the house by touch.

 

Gerard opened the bathroom door and shivered when his feet hit the cold tiles. He carefully locked the door behind him and gave himself an unappreciative look in the mirror. He looked sickly, as always; his hair was long and messy, his eyes had sunk deep into his head and he constantly held a suspicious look in them. He was unnaturally pale.

Gerard followed the routes of his blue veins under the skin of his chest. He often imagined it as a map for an unknown land; the veins were rivers to him, running towards the oceans inside him. Moles marked the places of towns and cities, scars resembled the wonders of nature; forests, mountains, cliffs.

His ribcage was the bedrock holding it all together.

 

He stripped down of his underwear and stepped under the shower, turning the handle and jumping a little when the cold water began falling on his skin. Gerard didn’t want it another way though; cold water felt like the rain he had hoped for a long time, and he closed eyes and imagined the sound of water dripping down the tiles to be the soft sound of raindrops hitting roofs.

He was so very, very tired.

 

Sleep was pacing around him in circles, but always avoided his touch by few inches and escaped from his shaking hands. There were nights Gerard wanted stick around to watch and then there was these kinds of nights.

 

As he was scrubbing his skin until it was turning red, he let his mind wonder freely. This was Gerard’s safe place, somewhere away from the torture of his bed, the loneliness of his room. Yeah, as much as he loved the basement that was only _his_ and no one else’s, the walls had witnessed enough to still sometimes hold echoes of his past.

Sometimes Gerard couldn’t help but think that it probably would've been better if he moved out already. Then again, he most likely wouldn’t have survived a week by himself. Gerard wasn’t exactly good at taking care.

 

Slowly, Gerard turned the handle so that the water’s heat increased until it was basically boiling him alive. Time didn’t matter to him and he didn’t think about it passing; it was not like he was in a hurry. No one needed anything of him.

That’s partly why he adored the night so much.

The night was free.

 

Gerard washed his hair, rubbing his scalp hard enough to cause white sparkles in his eyesight. His temples ached as he let water run through his uncombed tangles and he stared at the dirty water when it flowed into the drain.

He had considered dyeing his hair for a while now, but he wasn’t sure about the result. His hair was naturally thick and dark, and he would have to bleach it before he could do anything about it. He was fairly sure that he’d end up accidentally balding himself, which didn’t sound like a tempting option at _all_. Some people were naturally born peroxide princes and princesses, but Gerard didn't want to trust himself with that much responsibility. Besides, Gerard and chemicals didn't make a good pair most of the time. He had proved that to himself.

He was not one of those people who could pull bald off.

Yeah. Definitely not.

 

Gerard turned off the shower and grabbed the towel, dried his hair and wrapped the towel around his waist. He looked at the mirror again and took note how much younger he looked like this; his hair pulled back, his bare arms crossed over his chest.

He glared at the pouch on his stomach. The towel wrapped around right below it made it stood out quite painfully. Painfully in that sense, that Gerard instinctively pressed his nails into the spare fat and waited for the nails to draw blood.

 

He didn’t have problem if someone asked – he himself _was_ the problem, and maybe he wasn’t exactly the master of self-esteem, but he definitely had other things to worry about. Besides, Gerard had already lost a lot of weight during the summer, the heat had completely destroyed his appetite, so Gerard was lighter by at least then pounds than he had been a couple of months ago. It made him very pleased.

Zero effort improvements were just the kind of improvements he liked.

 

He dropped by at the kitchen before returning to his room. Gerard opened the fridge door and took a sip straight from the milk bottle – which his mother would have disowned him for if she had known.

 

He then lazily checked the food situation and settled with some leftover pasta from couple of days ago which everyone else had most likely already forgotten about.

Today’s dinner had been mostly avoiding questions, and Gerard felt like his mom had purposely tried to make Gerard as uncomfortable as humanly possible.

His stomach grumbled to the smell of the food, when he carefully opened the lid of the Tupperware box and peeked in to make sure, that the pasta was still edible. After picking up a fork and a half-full bottle of dr. Pepper, Gerard returned into the basement.

 

Somehow he felt like this was going to be an extremely sleepless night.

 

 ***

 

Sleepless Friday was followed by a very uneventful Saturday. Frank called at mid-day only to tell that he was feeling kind of under the weather, and would rather stay in bed in case he had caught something from school.

 

“You’re early this year” Gerard commented, biting down a yawn, “usually the first flu's in September.”

“Yeah well.” Frank really did sound ill, “You know what they say about the early birds.”

 

“Frank, are you’re sure that you want to catch the worm?” Gerard giggled, and earned a weird look from his dad who was paging through today’s paper in the living room. He had put his slipper-covered feet up on the coffee table almost like Frank always did, and Gerard couldn’t help but hear his mother’s obnoxious psychoanalyses in his head: _Frank looks for father figures, Gerard. All boys with distant fathers do._

“What’s the worm a metaphor for here?” Frank sounded suspicious.

 

“I have no idea.” Gerard shrugged and immediately realized that Frank could not see him, “It doesn’t have to be. A metaphor, I mean.”

 

“You’re good at taking everything literally.”

“Life is more fun that way.” Gerard grinned. His little brother was walking down the stairs, hair sticking out in weird directions and clearly just woken up less than minutes ago. He was shorter than Gerard and extremely thin, all of his clothes looked like they were two sizes too big and Gerard was pretty sure that one of these days the wind would grab him and they’d never hear of him again.

Mikey noticed that Gerard was looking at him, and gave his big brother the middle finger. Gerard stuck out his tongue before returning to the conversation with Frank.

 

“You’re sure you’re staying in?” Gerard confirmed. He didn’t despise the idea of being alone but he couldn’t think of anything fun to do, either. Maybe he could’ve taken a bus to the city and shop for some comics, but he was not in the mood. Besides, he had already wasted most of his weekly allowance in a Batman action figure he had bought from some senior after gym class couple of days ago.

 

“Yeah. Sorry” Frank coughed on the other side of the line, “Please send all your possible complaints to my immune system, twenty-seven, garbage road, shit city.”

 

“Well, what can you do.” Gerard did his best to cover up his disappointment. “See you in school, then.”

 

“See you, Gerard.”

Frank hung up.

 

For a moment Gerard just stood there with the phone in hand, just thinking about not specifically anything. He could hear Mikey opening the fridge door and grabbing the milk, fixing himself a bowl of cereal and turning on the coffee machine. Gerard wasn't surprised at all; if there was something he shared with his brother then it was enthusiasm about good coffee. Whereas the brothers basically treated the stimulant as some kind of a liquid of life, Donna hated the public secret that both of his sons had been seriously addicted to caffeine since the age of eleven despite her attempts to teach them value of a healthy, nutritional diet.

Her healthy and nutritional continued to lose to Chinese take-away and pizza.

And coffee, of course.

 

Gerard put down the phone and followed his brother into the kitchen.

 

When Mikey noticed Gerard, his left eyebrow rose just at the height of his fringe as a sign of _what the fuck do you want._ Gerard couldn’t help but poke a fun at the other’s sulking expression.

 

“Morning.” Gerard said cheerfully and leaned against the counter, “Swamp thing called. It wants its face back.”

“Go fuck yourself, Gerard.” Mikey hadn’t reached his voice change yet, and Gerard thought that he often sounded more like a girl than a boy. Not that he had some kind of a deep, masculine voice himself; he had inherited his father’s annoying voice that reminded Gerard of Kermit the frog, and he wasn’t exactly glad about it.

 

“Hey.” Gerard hooked Mikey’s arm when he tried to escape, “I was wondering –“

 

“The answer’s no, whatever it is.” Mikey yanked himself out of Gerard’s grip and his dirty glasses had a hard time staying on the right place.

 

“Listen” Gerard whined, “I just thought that we could like. Hang out today or something.”

“Because Frank stood you up?” Mikey rolled his eyes at his older brother’s face, “Wow, I’m flattered.”

“Because you’re surprised that I choose my best friend over my pain-in-the-ass kid brother?”

 

Mikey walked towards the stairs and tried his best to ignore Gerard, who was determinately following him like a dog follows its owner.

 

“Touché.” Mikey turned around on his heels at the bottom of the staircase and gave Gerard a murderous glance, “Look, I couldn’t hang out with you if I wanted to. I’ve got a date.” He looked awfully serious and Gerard couldn’t help but burst in laughter.

 

“You? Date?” Gerard coughed mid-breaths, tears in his eyes, “You got to be kidding me. Who are you going on a date with, Mikes?”

 

“ _Don’t_ call me that.” Mikey was considering throwing his cereal at the other’s face but decided that his cereal deserved better, “and I have a date with Dracula. Six hours of blood and guts, dude. My kinda date.” He pretended to check a time from an imaginary wrist watch; “Oh, look at the time! I’m late already!”

He started running up the stairs in the hope that Gerard wasn’t following, but today wasn’t Mikey’s lucky day.

 

“Please, Mikey”, Gerard widened his eyes to look like a sad puppy even though he was doubtful about the method being effective on his brother who had seen Gerard’s every single trick to get out of trouble over the years.

It was still worth trying out.

 

“ _Fine._ ” Mikey sighed getting Gerard completely caught on guard. If Gerard had known that pursuing Mikey in his will was this easy before, he would’ve taken advantage of it a lot earlier.

The truth was that Gerard wasn’t feeling too well; he had barely slept, caffeine was making him shake, his head hurt and he had spent all night feeling oddly hopeless and sad, so he would take anything he could right now to make himself feel better. And contrary to usual, Gerard found himself really craving human company.

It surprised him.

 

“Fine?”

“As long as you don’t make those fucking annoying comments about details” Mikey mumbled, “You know I hate that. And don’t touch my stuff or I’ll stab you.”

  
“Thanks, Mikes”, Gerard followed the other to the attic hastily like he was afraid of the other chancing his mind about this, “You’re my favorite little brother.”

 

“I’m your _only_ little brother, Gerard.”

 

“Exactly.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another happy chapter, hope y'all enjoy

What do the trees look like at Halloween morning?

 

Frank Iero, now fifteen years of age, peeked out of the window as soon as he was woken up by the alarm. Any other day, he would’ve just ignored the sound and fallen back to sleep, but today wasn’t just another day. Today was Halloween.

 

Just as he remembered – like every other year, the oaks right next to his bedroom window celebrated his birthday with bright shades of orange and yellow. And exactly like every other birthday, he laid on the bed and watched the sky colored like rust, the pale All Saints Day morning. He could already feel the ghouls and ghosts waking from their graves, and Frank was _excited._ The wind was howling in the foundations of the house, the curtains danced to the wind, and the fall had finally arrived.

 

Frank had always loved his birthday. Why he shouldn't have? He got older, (that was a big plus, Christ) he got gifts and he got tons and tons of birthday cake. And most importantly, he got to be out all night roaming the streets without a single complaint – this was his mother’s generous gift for him, since she’d figured that trying to keep Frank behind locked doors during Halloween was simply impossible.

 

And the streets themselves? They were Gerard’s gift.

Every single year since they’d become friends, Gerard had figured a special adventure for Frank’s birthday night. And just like the universe was on their side, _for once_ , the night seemed to favor the kids who were up to no good. They had seen so much they weren’t supposed to see at Halloween – last year they had broken into a library trough the ventilation window and left little notes inside their favorite books (Gerard’s favorite books, that was, because Frank hadn’t really ever liked reading), and had a Halloween candy picnic in the library basement. A picnic that would later turn into a food fight, then a fist fight, then rolling around in their tic tacs and gummy worms cursing each other into the darkest pits off hell with laughter dripping down their jaws along with sugar.

 

One other time, they had trick or treated abandoned houses; which basically meant that they, for the rest of neighborhood’s confusion, had made a mess of a bunch of empty houses around the block just for the sake of it. All the classic tricks; toilet paper-covered walls and roofs. Red paint like blood on the windows, rotten eggs. The only difference was that there was no one to clean up the mess, so when the morning after Halloween brought light upon their crimes, there was not a significant amount of voluntaries to tidy up the place.

 _Just for the sake of it_ really seemed to summarize their whole friendship.

 

Frank pulled his covers aside and jumped off the bed, tearing off his pajamas and getting dressed just in a matter of minutes. His outfit of choice was a Dracula t-shirt he’d gotten from his dad last year, and pair of grey jeans, ripped from the knees – to be fair, also the only pair of jeans he currently owned.

He looked in the mirror, judging whether or not he looked any older (negative, he still appeared to be seven, at most) and damped his fingers with the hair wax which he stored on his bedside table.

 

After fixing his hair into its usual, windswept look that his mother heavily despised, he winked at his own reflection. Damn, he still looked like a fucking kid – he still _was_ a fucking kid – but maybe he could shoot for sixteen. By then he had to become attractive, right? It was obligatory, and Frank wanted to be good-looking by his senior year, at the very least. Good-looking and _tall._

Yeah, that sounded good.

 

He picked up his backpack from the floor and was just about to open the door, when his mother walked in without a knock. Frank was used of her habit of haunting the house like a restless spirit, but her quiet way of moving around still managed to give him several scares a week.

 

“Morning” Linda Iero smiled and opened his arms for a hug, “And happy birthday, baby.” She was wearing a silky morning gown (the only expensive piece of clothing she owned), and she had curled her black hair into a wild halo around her thin face.

Just like her son, Linda was a really small person, fragile, even. She most like weighed about thirty pounds, which was a part of her ghost-like appearance. She mostly wore white and grey, she was usually silent in company but never stopped talking at home, she worked hard, cooked well and she was really good at sneaking around.

 

“Morning, ma” Frank hugged his mother and inhaled her safe scent. Despite her size, Linda had this certain extent of protection to her. She was a safe person, so to speak. And Frank really, really loved his mother.

 

“Fifteen…” Linda sighed and took a closer look at her son like she had never seen him before, capturing his face in-between her hands, “I still remember how I held you in my arms for the first time. Feels like yesterday.”

 

“Well, it wasn’t” Frank grinned at her and wiggled off her embrace, “Look, ma, Gerard said he’d be here by half past seven –“

“That early?” Linda raised her eyebrows.  
“He said he wanted to show me something before school” Frank shrugged, “and I really need breakfast, y’know.”

 

“Oh, I know, I know” Linda rolled her eyes and shoved her son out of the door, “I’ve been feeding your glutton mouth for fifteen years now, God help me.”

 

“God ain’t helping you to fix my cereal, ma.” Frank called out over his shoulder while already heading down the stairs towards the kitchen, his backpack hanging from his shoulder, “And don’t forget the pop tarts, ‘cause it’s my special day, you know.”

 

“Ungrateful _brat_.” Frank heard his mother laugh out and follow his son downstairs. Her steps were lighter than usual and she seemed to float around like the weight of the world had been lifted from her pointy shoulders. Frank didn’t know what the new vibe was about, but he really liked it. He hated seeing his mother miserable.

 

“Yeah, I’m a troublemaker” Frank sat down on the couch and lifted his feet on the coffee table as usual, dodging skillfully as his mother passed him and tried to run her fingers through his hair to tame down the spikes. Linda hadn’t given a permission to style his hair in that way, hadn’t given the permission to dye it, either, but Frank had stopped asking for a permission for things he knew that he’d get a solid _no_ as an answer for.

Linda wasn’t really surprised.

 

“ _Nuisance,_ that’s what you are” Linda smiled and reached for the box of pop tarts in the cupboard, “did you do your homework yesterday? I’m not listening any more of those teachers saying how you show up empty-handed in class.”

 

“I _did_ , ma” Frank whined and caught the pop tart his mother had tossed to him, “I swear. I’m not as stupid as they say I am.”

“I know you’re not stupid, honey” Linda started fixing a bowl of Lucky Carms as Frank bit into the pop tart and opened the TV, “That’s exactly why I don’t want them to think you are, either.”

 

“They don’t like me ‘cause I ask hard questions.” Frank surfed through the channels, crumples of pop tarts flying all over the carpet, “and it makes them look dumb ‘cause they don’t know the answers.”

Linda sighed.

 

“No sweetie”, she walked over and handed Frank his cereal, “They don’t like you because you’re a smartass. Feet off the table!” She slapped her son’s head and made him put down his feet before returning back to kitchen. Frank gave his mom the puppy-eyes, and she scoffed but couldn’t help but smile.

Frank was charming, so to speak. _Too_ charming. Linda was already living in a fear of a flock of teenage girls camping in her garden to ask her son out, she was guessing that Frank was at least becoming popular with the girls, but none had shown. Yet. Linda lived in fear.

Oddly, the only person who ever rang their doorbell was that weird Way boy, the one whose hair looked like a bird’s nest and made Linda’s own scalp itch whenever he was in sight. She had never understood why Frank got along with Gerard so well, but if Linda was honest, Frank could’ve made a worse choice. At least Gerard had manners; he said thank you, he was very shy and quiet around the house and rarely got Frank in trouble.

(The thing was – Gerard actually did, but he usually got Frank out of it too. Good enough for Linda.)

 

“You want your father’s present now, or after school?” Linda called out from the kitchen and heard Frank swallow down a specifically big mouthful of cereal hastily before coughing;

“ _Of course_ I want it now!”

“I thought so” Linda scorned and entered the living room again, only that this time she was carrying a neatly wrapped gift about a size of her head in her arms. The gift wrapping paper was black and covered in jack’o’lanterns, which made Frank grin. Where the hell had his had found that stuff?

 

“I bet you ten bucks he didn’t wrap that up himself” Frank said and took the gift eagerly, eyes gleaming in childish joy, “it looks way too good.”

 

“I’m not betting anything, Frankie” Linda laughed, “Come on, now. Open it!”

 

Frank had no idea what to expect. His dad knew him better than most people did – in fact, Frank was pretty sure that his dad was right at the top of the list of people who knew him best (well, right after Gerard probably), and his gifts were usually something that only he could’ve come up with. Cool t-shirts, cool belts, action figures, new skateboard tires, headphones – Frank Iero senior had gotten his son a fair amount of useful things in the past couple of years, and Frank really missed his dad at times. It was his default state, though; he had been so little when the divorce took place that he could hardly remember living with his dad anymore. The only vivid memories were from his parents tucking him in bed together and “reading” him bedtime stories, aka acting out scenes out of Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back while he giggled and yawned until he was half-asleep.

He could also remember his mom complaining about it, because she hadn’t seen the movie and thought it was really stupid, but her husband insisted that it’d be good for their son’s cultural development (or something.) Linda had laughed at that.

No wonder they had gotten divorced, Frank figured. He hadn’t really asked for the real reason. To be exact, he just didn’t really care.

 

Frank ripped apart the wrapping paper like a vicious animal feeding on its prey, and was then staring at a simple cardboard box with a little note taped on it. Not bothering to read it, Frank flipped open the box and found a drumstick and a pair of what looked like normal, black wristbands.

Curiously Frank picked up the drumstick only to notice that it was used; nearly snapped in two and chapped in places; he then picked up the wristbands but they remained completely ordinary.

Frank was confused.

And surprised, as well.

 

“What are these for?” Frank looked up at his mom looking for answers, but she seemed to be as clueless as he was, “Unless there’s a message hidden, I don’t understand – I mean they’re cool but –“

“The note” His mom remembered suddenly, “Read the note!”

 

Frank agreed. He closed the box and opened the simple handwritten note expecting to see his father’s wobbly handwriting, but instead he was staring at what seemed to be an autograph.

It took two seconds for Frank to fathom what he was reading, and by then he had already jumped up fast enough to scare his mom.

 

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my _fucking god.”_

 

“Language!”

 

“Oh my fricking fudging pudging pudding fungus-ing _God_!” Frank held the autograph in his hands like a christian holds a relic, “I’m _actually_ going to _die_.”

 

“What is it, then, Frankie?” Linda didn’t know what her ex-husband had gotten, but apparently he had a lot of free time to fulfill Frank’s wildest dreams with, because Linda was often beaten in the cool parent- section.

 

“Amazing birthday for Frank” Linda’s son spelled from the note like he was struggling to read and wanted to make sure that he was getting every word right, “From _Greg Ginn._ ” Frank proceeded to then around to pace around the room like the untamable joy was forcing him to move, “ _Ps. hope you like my wristbands_.”

 

Linda had no idea who the mentioned person was, but she wasn’t going to ruin her son’s moment by asking questions that felt kind of stupid, so she kept her mouth shut and smiled, clapping her hands a little.

 

“That’s wonderful, Frankie.”

 

“He got me Greg Ginn’s wristbands, ma!” Frank’s eyes were the size of plates when he turned to look at her mom, “ _The_ Greg Ginn’s! From Black Flag! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I am going to … I …. oh my God.”

 

“That’s…” Linda remembered that she had already used the word wonderful, “that’s lovely, honey.”

 

“Best. Birthday. Ever.” Frank took the wristbands like they were something holy and seemed to hesitate a second before slipping them on his own, skinny wrists; “I can’t wait to tell Gerard. He’s going to s _trangle_ me.”

 

“Well I certainly hope not.” Linda smiled, “Is that him, by the way?”

 

Linda was right – Gerard was standing on the porch, having a debate with himself about whether or not he should ring the doorbell already or wait a moment in case he was too early. Before he had to make his decision though, Frank had already rushed to the door and yanked it open, greeting Gerard with a victory dance, which then turned into a hug, which then turned into a tackle halfway through as Gerard was unprepared for any kind of human contact and a sudden armful of Frank was enough to throw him off of his balance.

Frank was unbothered.

 

“Man, what the –“

“Gerard! You have to see this – come …” Frank gripped Gerard’s wrist and started pulling him inside, “You’re not gonna believe…”

 

Linda rolled her eyes and escaped upstairs before Frank’s giddy voice gave her a headache. While she was climbing down the stairs she could hear herself humming;

_happy birthday to you,_

_happy birthday to you_

_Happy birthday dear Frankie..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by the way thank you for reading, leaving kudos, bookmarking, leaving comments, anything, it still makes my day a whole lot better !


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet most of you thought that i had already given up on this fic, but nah. I'm just really fucking lazy .

The air was cold that morning.  The night had frosted the windows with its chilly fingers and even though the summer wasn’t too far behind,  Frank  could already feel the winter knocking on the door impatiently like it was having a hard time waiting its turn.

Halloween was the time in-between and that was part of the charm. October was a month that closed the blinds and pulled the curtains in the front of the window, hushing and saying; _we shouldn’t let the winter in just yet._ A silent fistfight of cold fall rain, gray clouds and the slowly fading sunshine of summer. A deathbed of a season, and the beginning of another. 

 

Frank walked as if someone had installed springs into his calves. Bouncing around the pavement he managed to circle Gerard as they were walking, blocking his way from time to time and  well, just generally being a bit irritating. Small as a mosquito or a fly buzzing around Gerard's hair, over and over again.

But Gerard put up with it for now, because it was Frank, and it was Frank’s birthday, and if Gerard was really honest then he preferred this Frank to the apathetic downer the boy had been for a past couple of days. Gerard called this said apathetic state “Pre-birthday depression”, which often hit Frank hard and made him roll around in self-pity and dive headfirst into an uncontrollable spiral of movie marathons and junk-food i ntake . It seemed as if solely the idea of cubicles, office work and paying taxes made Frank sink into a dark, imaginative place where he’d wallow in an existential fear of wasting his youth, though he had barely passed his pre-teens. Gerard was used to it, and it was hardly intolerable since it usually occurred only once a year.

 

 

“You wanted to show me something” Frank danced down the driveway with a significantly less enthusiastic Gerard half-jogging behind the other to keep up with his pace. Gerard was pressing his school bag protectively against his side as usual, the memory of middle school bullies fresh on his mind - Gerard was private and didn’t like his belongings to be handled by anyone else, which made him cling onto his bag like he carried the top secret files containing the purpose of Area 51 instead of just a couple of books and unsharpened pencils.

Well, today he wasn’t carrying just the normal stuff. Today was a treasure day.

 

Secretively, Gerard put his hand in his bag, smirking at Frank’s face and warning the other: 

“This is not your gift, okay?”

“No?” Frank raised his eyebrows.

“Nah, it’s… well you’ll see”; wrapping his fingers around the object he gave Frank a nervous smile and waited for the other’s eyes to light up before pulling his secret out of his bag; a shiny new video camera that fit just right into Gerard’s hand.

 

Gerard hadn’t talked about this before, but he had had an idea for the longest amount of time; this perfect plan that he could execute if Frank was willing to be his partner-in-crime once again. And Frank’s birthday, also being literally Gerard’s favorite night of the whole year seemed like a terrific time to be stupid, to have adventures.

 

“Who did you steal _that_ from?” Frank was mostly confused, which did not stop him from being excited. He trusted Gerard enough to know that this was probably leading to something fun.

 

“Dad lent it for me” Gerard explained quickly, “I had to make a sacred vow not to break it n’ stuff, but he finally gave in.”

“What’s it for, though?” The birthday boy was now looking for a reason for the sly grin on Gerard’s face that suggested he was up to no good at all. There were no butterflies in the bottom of Frank’s stomach (to him, that seemed a bit cliché) but there were definitely something; spiders, maybe? Moths? If that was more festively accurate. 

He crossed his arms expectantly.

 

“Ghost hunting.” Gerard smiled as Frank’s eyes widened, and Gerard knew that already, with just these couple words, he had won his best friend on his side. When it came to creepy and forbidden and possibly dangerous, Frank didn’t need that much persuasion whatsoever. Some people could’ve called him foolhardy, but Gerard called him fun. Frank was ready for trouble at all times, and Gerard, never mind how hard he tried to hide it, loved trouble every once in a while.

 

“Dude –“

“You know the Bloomfield cemetery, right?” Gerard asked, “I thought… I dunno, I thought that we could go there at night, film and stuff. See if we can catch something on tape.” He shook the camera in his hand, “been doing research and ‘s actually pretty common to get some like.. paranormal activity recorded. We just have to know where to look.”

“You serious?” 

“I mean, only if you want to –“

 

If there was gonna be a time when Frank would say no to Gerard, this was not it. Admiringly, he grabbed the video camera from Gerard's hands and inspected it (pretending like he actually knew anything about cameras), and scoffed;

“Ghosts on video, huh?” he turned on the camera and aimed it at Gerard's flushed face, which caused the older boy cover it with his hand, “Sounds great.”

 

The trees were swinging in a thin Halloween morning wind, barely whispering winter, the upcoming cold. Frank's skin was shivering but inside he felt warm when Gerard grinned proudly.

 

“You bring the candy, I bring the scotch?” Frank raised an eyebrow. “Mom always forgets to unlock the liquor cabinet, y'know.”

“Deal. I bet I can steal like half of Mikey's candy. He won't notice.”

 

Frank handed the video camera back to Gerard after turning it off. For some reason, he felt like giving the other a hug, but he stopped himself mid-thought. This was not the time to get weird, and Frank wasn't a hugger type per se. It was just not something they did. The only acceptable time for guys to hug, in Frank's mind, was that moment when someone made a home run in a baseball game. He wasn't questioning that now.

 

“I'll show up by your house at eleven, alright?” The fifteen-year-old suggested instead.

“Make that half past. My folks are asleep by then, hopefully.”

“Fine by me.”

 

**

 

Gerard had dreamt about ghost hunting for a long time now. After watching a scruffy, home-made documentary of the said subject while trying to spend another night of insomnia, he had longed for some paranormal activity himself. Flickering screens and bad quality tapes of restless souls intrigued him, and Gerard definitely believed in some ghosts. He had done enough research to believe.

 

He wanted to try and catch some spirits on a tape, that was his, and _his_ only. He was fascinated by anything that was far away from reality, and post-mortal things were a perfect subject of further investigation.

 

Okay. Maybe saying that Gerard believed in ghosts was bit of an understatement. More like he was _obsessed_ with them, just a little bit. He drew ghosts, wrote about ghosts, and ghosts he'd try and outsmart in the Halloween of 96. With his best friend on his side, nothing could go wrong. (Or everything could, but they would handle it.)

 

 

That night was ecstatic and static, electric pulses fizzling through veins. That night was heavy with expectations. The wet leaves ruffled against the wheels of their bikes as the two boys drove down the shortcut roads, concentrated looks glued on their serious, pale faces.

 

Gerard lead the way, sweat glistening on his forehead in an attempt to keep up a speed that suited Frank. The younger one was the faster one of them, and Gerard didn't want to lose to him like he did, most times. Frank's eyelashes were covered in raindrops due to the soft drizzle of rain. His bottom lip was flaking and dry for biting on it, a nervous habit. Good kind of nervous, that's what this was. Best kind, even.  
Gerard had his school bag hanging from his shoulders, in which he had hidden all of their equipment; the half-full bottle of cheap scotch Frank had “borrowed” from his mother, a big bag of pumpkin-shaped chocolates, and of course, the video camera.

 

Gerard was dressed like he was going on a robbery gig. A black tracksuit pants, a black t-shirt and a black oversized hoodie which was way too big for him and hung from his shoulders kinda awkwardly, making him look smaller and thinner than usual.

 

Today's dinner had been a torture for Gerard. Finding it hard to swallow bites of food, he had mostly poked his pasta all over his plate until his mom had asked him what was going on. She knew his sons well enough to tell when something was up with them. It's not like Gerard was usually too talkative; but Mrs. Way could tell the difference between the several shades of sulking.

“Nothin'” Gerard had mumbled defensively, but Mikey's eye roll in his direction had gave him away. Of course Mikey had known what was up. Mikey had always known what his big brother and his best friend did at Frank's birthday. Luckily, Mikey didn't give enough shits about it to snitch (not unless Gerard screwed him over somehow).

Gerard had given Mikey a dirty look in return.

“Come on, sweetie. Something's clearly bothering you.” Their mom had argued and tried to read Gerard's mind through his dark eyes.

“'m just not that hungry.”

“Candy before dinner takes away the apetite, I'm telling you” Mr. Way had scoffed, “When are you gonna start taking care of yourself, Gerard?”

Gerard had shrugged, “Can I go?” He hated when his dad brought up the habits he viewed as unhealthy and, most importantly, unmanly. Maybe Mr. Way had dreamed to raise a quarterback instead of two lazy nerds, who knew. Who cared? Most certainly not Gerard. So, after being excused, he had taken his plate and left it in the sink before escaping into the safety of his beloved basement.

 

And now he was here, driving down a road towards an adventure, and he felt alive.

 

Gerard really had done his research. The Bloomfield cemetery was one of the many in the Belleville area, but for many reasons it seemed to be the best option. Reason number one was quite obvious; it was located close to their neighborhood and the aspiring ghost hunters would get there by bikes. Reason number two: it was conveniently disliked. To say it was abandoned would've been an exaggeration, but it most definitely wasn't a popular place, which made it a perfect place for something that wasn't exactly innocent.

 

Technically it wasn't against any rules to ghost hunt, but then again, most people Gerard knew probably would've given them a hard time for disrespecting the dead or whatever. Gerard had no intention to get a lecture about letting the post-mortal peace remain; Gerard had figured that the dead were most likely just bored, and would be thrilled to get some kind of action in their rotting graves.

So so what they weren't following every rule in the graveyard rulebook? Gerard was pretty certain that the rules were made to comfort the living, not the dead.

 

After approximately twenty minutes by bike, they arrived by the cemetery side gate. It's fence was partly shattering to pieces, and on the left side of the cemetery stood a small forest of oaks and maples. Gerard suggested they'd leave their bikes in the shadow of the forest just in case, and Frank agreed even though the trees creeped him out a little bit.

So, they left their bikes and headed towards the gate.

 

“Wait up.” Frank shoved Gerard's arm, “What if the gate creeks?”

“So?” Gerard's eyes looked freaky in the dark, his pupils glancing over at Frank.

 

“Wouldn't that like...” Frank paused to think, “distract the spirits or something?”

“Eh, don't sweat it. I don't think they'll hear...or care. Come on” Gerard picked the camera from the bag, turned it on and pressed record aiming at Frank and smiling behind it; “Say hello to the camera, Frankie.”

 

Frank waved at the camera at the same time he pushed open the gate. He was wearing his lucky wristbands and constantly touching them like he still couldn't quite believe it. He had decided to call his dad the following morning and thank him. If only dad wasn't so busy with his band, Frank would've loved to go and visit him soon.

 

“My name's Gerard Way, and this is the The Bloomfield cemetery in Belleville, New Jersey.” Gerard explained calmly to the camera while walking towards the gate, slowly turning the camera from side to side so that he'd record everything important (and less important. It was all about details, after all. Kind of like drawing.)

 

“Tonight, we're gonna try and record some paranormal activity around this cemetery.” Gerard was going for a professional tone, similar to which was often used in nature documentaries, “Oh, and this is my partner, Frank.” Gerard filmed Frank for few seconds and saw the boy raising his eyebrows through lens.

 

“What?”

“ _Partner?_ That's lame.”

“What do you want it to be?” Gerard argued, “Buddy? Friend? That just sounds dumb.”

 

“How about companion?” Frank continued with his criticism and gave a funny face to the camera. He didn't mind being filmed per se, but he wasn't exactly sure how to act while it was happening. So, he turned his back at the camera and pointed towards the small chapel in the middle of the cemetery: “Let's go there first.”

 

“Aight, _companion._ ” Gerard agreed, still staying behind the camera. He started walking in the direction Frank had pointed out for them, filming everything he saw and sometimes giving rather unnecessary commentary, like “wow it's dark in here” or “these gravestones are really old.” Frank wanted to laugh at the other's seriousness but somehow, this moment felt a little bit sacred and special for him too.

Not enough special to admit it right away, though, but special enough.

 

The graveyard ground was soft and gave in a little under their steps; it was a quiet night, but starrier than many nights had been before during that week. The clouds had somehow disappeared, the rain had stopped: mute starts pierced through the thick darkness making the wet gravestones glisten and gleam in their pale light.

Frank tucked his hands into his jacket pockets.

 

“You have night vision on in that thing?” Frank assured after Gerard had zoomed in at some specifically old gravestone, “otherwise it's just gonna be a black blur.”

 

“Of course I have night vision” Gerard rolled his eyes, “It catches ghosts the best. I read about it on ghostwiki.”

“Ghostwiki? What the fuck is that?”

“A website for ghost enthusiast. Cool stuff.” There wasn't a hint of sarcasm in Gerard's voice and Frank realized he was being deadly serious (no pun intended.)

 

“You're a fucking nerd.”

“You sound like my dad.” Gerard turned to film Frank again just in time to catch Frank flipping off the camera, “He thinks I should apply for the school football team. Thinks that it'd be good for me. Exercise and stuff.”

 

“Wow.” Frank leaned on some gravestone which name was unreadable, probably abused by weather, “I didn't realize your parents want you dead _that_ bad.”

“Fuck off.”

 

The boys reached the chapel and inspected it for a minute, only to find out it was not that interesting. Gerard supposed there were no ghosts around the newer areas, but they'd have to go and look for some really old, almost forgotten graves by somewhere in the edge of the cemetery. Frank didn't mind the idea, so they ended up pretty randomly wandering around the lines of gravestones and flower ornaments and crosses, before finally reaching what seemed like an ancient, abandoned part of the cemetery.

 

Some of the “gravestones” were just wooden crosses stuck into the ground, barely standing up, and most of the names had already worn out because of rain and decades of erosion. Frank made a game of trying to spell out names from the remaining letters, and Gerard commented on everything he thought was especially creepy or otherwise worth pondering over.

A Blind Angel statue followed the two boys with it's white eyes, and Frank tried to look away. He felt a little bit like he was doing something wrong, although he knew he wasn't.

 

Gerard found himself filming Frank more than he filmed the graveyard, but to be honest, Frank was more lively, more interesting, and more fun to look at, so Gerard figured that maybe his possible viewers wouldn't get too bothered by it.

 

Frank reached for the bottle of scotch in Gerard's bag and took a sip, coughed, and closed the bottle, sitting on the ground.

 

“So. Any idea where to find ghosts?” He asked, a sly grin flashing on his face. Frank definitely looked like he was up to no good at all, just like Gerard had only hours ago in the morning. Gerard felt the excitement build up in his guts.

 

“Maybe we sit down and wait. Be silent. And they'll show.”

“Sounds good to me.” Frank laid down on the grass, looking at the beautiful October night sky; “Want scotch?”

“Sure.” Gerard followed Frank's lead and sat on the cold ground, shivering a bit when the wet grass tickled his palms. He put down the camera without turning it off yet and took the bottle Frank was offering, taking a sip and then putting it into his bag. Unlike Frank, Gerard didn't mind the taste of scotch at all. It burned pleasantly on his tongue before he swallowed, and he felt it warming his throat and his stomach on its way.

 

The sky above them looked like it was made of smoke and sparkles of glitter. Softer than usual, somehow. The starlight made Frank's skin shine pale and almost blue-ish, and Gerard nearly felt like he had actually caught a ghost on camera already, following Frank around and filming him.

 

“Y'know, I'm really glad we came.” Frank broke the silence and crossed his hands under his head, “I mean, even if we wouldn't find ghosts. I'm still glad.”

 

Gerard picked up the camera, hiding behind it and filmed Frank again; “I'm glad we came, too.”

Gerard's voice was a bit hoarser than usual, and he noticed that he was almost whispering for no apparent reason, like the cemetery itself demanded respectful silence.

 

“What'ya thinking about, Frankie?” Gerard zoomed on the other's face and grinned, “You just turned fifteen, got your whole life ahead of you. How does that feel?”

 

“It feels...” Frank smiled, and the stars reflected from the white of his eyes, “Scary, but cool. Really cool.”

“Cooler than like, what, for example?”

 

“What's with this investigation.” Frank laughed and tried to catch the camera from Gerard's hands, failing, “We here to see some ghosts or talk about feelings?”

 

“Don't be stupid.” Gerard rolled his eyes very Gerardly, “We never talk about feelings.”

 

“Yeah, I don't, but you're always asking weird shit.” Frank got up on his elbows and glanced at Gerard almost curiously, “You're weird, Gerard, you know that? Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all, even though I've known you my whole life, you know?”

“Nah”, Gerard shook his head and an owl howled somewhere in the distance, “You know me, I'm not that special or anything.”

 

“Yeah you are” Frank argued, “It's like… I never quite know what you're thinking, right? I mean, I _know_ , but then you come up with some new crazy shit and I never get used to it.”

“You wanna get used to it?”

“Pr'olly couldn't if I wanted to.” Frank gestured at the camera: “Come on, let me film for a sec.”

“Nu-huh.”

 

Whereas Frank almost liked being filmed, Gerard despised it. He hated the idea of being viewed and recorded like that, and he was not going to give Frank the chance. Not because he especially wanted to hoard the camera or anything, but because the idea of being watched over and over again on some screen made him severely uncomfortable.

But Frank was stubborn.  


“Don't be a jerk. Give it to me!”

“I said no, Frank.” Gerard held tighter onto the camera, “My dad's gonna kill me dead if it breaks.”

“It won't break. I wanna try it, come on.”

 

Gerard would've fought more, but he knew the look in Frank's eyes and also knew what it meant. The boy wasn't giving up so easy.

 

Sighing, Gerard handed the camera over to Frank, and almost anxiously watched his best friend fondle the several buttons and controls of the camera.

 

“Here we have” Frank turned the camera to Gerard like the older boy had feared, “Gerard, my noble companion. Say hi to the camera, Gerard.”

Fuck you” Gerard had picked up the bottle of scotch and taken two more gulps from it, “Don't film me.”

“You've filmed the whole night. 's not fair.”

“I don't care. I don't like being filmed.”

 

“Why not, Gerard?” Frank raised his eyebrows, “Let's talk about feelings, shall we. You made me talk about feelings, too.”

 

“Suck my dick.” Gerard turned around so that he wasn't facing the camera. It was his turn to lay on the ground and stargaze, in the lack of better things to do. No ghosts had shown themselves yet, but Gerard was patient.

 

And besides, just like Frank had said – he didn't even mind if they wouldn't see ghosts tonight. Gerard knew this things took some time and luck. And yeah, this was alright without any actual spirits or anything like that. Frank was enough of a ghost for him.

 

“You look dead” Frank informed his friend, “The night vision makes you look green. And lifeless. A zombie, maybe.”

“That's the best compliment ever.”

“It was not a compliment, you fucking weirdo.”

 

 

They didn't see any ghosts, or ghouls, or spirits, or vampires, or zombies either that night. In fact, it was a pretty normal and quiet night for Halloween, but against every odds, the boys didn't actually mind that much.

 

Watching the sky made of smoke, eating chocolate pumpkins and chugging down the cheap scotch, talking about their teachers and their schoolmates and everyone else, it was a good night. Maybe a best birthday Frank had had in this point, and he held high hopes for all the next birthdays to come. He couldn't wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it ! leave a comment if you did and make my day


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